StrangeQ:Great. So 1000 years from now when everyone is juggling around their festivus mole there's still going to be the naysayers that claim it is just a stolen holiday and demand to return to traditional practices like the great owl hunt.

blatz514:Still don't how PBR is a hipster beer. Around here it's normal.

PBR came about as a hipster beer because of Gen Xers (like me) liking craft and imported beers. It seems Gen Xers children look at expensive beer the same way I looked at Miller Lite, "I'm not drinking that my father drinks that and he has no taste."

/fortunately I waited to have children so my 6 year old won't be a hipster.

Wayne 985:As an atheist, stuff like this worries me. You win more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, and stacking beer cans next to people's religious symbols is going to come across as petty and utterly shallow.

Meh. i just don't have TIME for this crap. If I had time for religion, I'd join one of the more profitable ones and get paid for it. I sure as shiat don't have time to go out of my way to do stuff whose only point is riling up an already ignorant, belligerent, and potentially dangerous group of people.

Xioxia:Look, the festivus pole is a symbol to combat the commercialism of the Christmas holidays. It needs to be one solid piece of metal, decorated with tinsel. There will be a dinner to air out grievances, followed by some strenuous wrestling.

StrangeQ:Wayne 985: As an atheist, stuff like this worries me. You win more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, and stacking beer cans next to people's religious symbols is going to come across as petty and utterly shallow.

You know what you win even more flies with? Big stinking piles of shiat. Think about it.

Xioxia:Look, the festivus pole is a symbol to combat the commercialism of the Christmas holidays. It needs to be one solid piece of metal, decorated with tinsel. There will be a dinner to air out grievances, followed by some strenuous wrestling.

/So sayeth The Costanza

And I say LET the consumerism take over the holiday, just like the Christians took it over from the previous religions.

MmmmBacon:I was shocked that not one person is whining about the Beer-Can Festivus Pole display yet in TFA's comments section. Just the guy who put up the pole and someone else who thought it was funny commenting thus far.

Normally you'd get the regular crowd of people screaming about a "War on Christmas", spouting platitudes like "Jesus is the reason for the season"... when there is no war on Christmas, and Jesus is only the reason for the holiday season if you ignore all the other religions who have holidays at the end of the year, including some holidays that predate Christianity entirely.

Anyway, since those morans didn't bother to show up (yet) in TFA's comments, I just have to hope they show up here so I can get a good laugh.

I would have thought the War on christmas was over and done with the invention of television advertising and the ensuing rampant consumerism. What do I know though . . .

StrangeQ:Monkeyhouse Zendo: Reason will eventually win out over superstition.

That has always worried me. It's like the Just-world hypothesis; we would like for it to be true, but there's no promise that it is. I would like to believe that left to their own devices, people would eventually come to the conclusion that an empiricistic philosophy towards understanding other people and the world around us would win out. But experience says that isn't true. You will have radicals that will hold to their believes without proof, evidence or regard towards the consequences towards others. For some you may be able to adopt a live and let live posture, but you will often find yourself unavoidably apposed to many of their positions. And then there are those whose consequences suggest that it would be better if you did not exist. If you try to fight that with passivity you're going to lose.

I hope you're right though, and eventually people adopt a logical, knowledgable and understanding view towards each other. I think it follows the eastern philosophy that the way cannot be taught it can only be known.

I take that as meaning the way cannot be forced. People have to come to their own decisions, Inception, if you like. But I also don't think there's anything wrong with dropping little hints along the path, especially when the group you're aiming them at is at once so attached to their beliefs and so paranoid of them.

Read Supersense: Why we believe the unbelievable by Bruce Hood. He posits that there will always be magical thinking because we are hard-wired for it. He demonstrates through psychological studies with children; case studies of brain injuries, disease, and elderly dementia; as well as simple illusions, how our brains make shiat up and there isn't a helluva lot you can do about it. Consider your sentimental attachments to inanimate objects as a simple example. It has made me self-conscious of the magical thoughts I have, that I override in next instant with a reasonable dismissal. Hell, I don't believe in ghosts, but I remember the time I had a mouse in my kitchen at night, and a bread bag was moving on my counter, and my first instantaneous, stupid thought was "DEMONIC BREAD!" followed by "No you moron, mice. WTF, demons? Where did that come from?"

On the other hand, if it wasn't for our unreasonable brains and our magical thinking strategies growing up, the chaotic universe would be overwhelming, we wouldn't form social relationships as we know them (for better or for worse), and we wouldn't be very creative. Your brain is a jerk that is constantly farking with you, but for your own good, essentially.

It's a fascinating read and it has helped me to be somewhat more patient with magical thinking in others (thought it gives me pedantic urges to tell them why they're thinking what they're thinking). I think Bruce Hood was featured on Fark a while back with his "would you wear a killer's cardigan" experiment.

It's cold comfort, though, as silly beliefs spring up all the time. By the time you've discredited one fiction, a dozen more popped up when you weren't looking. Convince people female hysteria is a fake psychological diagnosis? BAM! Your soul is composed of thetans, vaccines cause autism, and prayers offered to deity X are better than modern medical treatment. And that homeopathy thing you disproved a long time ago? It's been resurrected.

That's the catch-22 of diversity. You get a lot of different ideas (which is great, in and of itself), but some of those ideas happen to be very, very bad, and are appealing to people who are susceptible to the particular cognitive trap by which those ideas are propagated. (notice that I'm not using the word "stupid" to describe people who believe in superstitions, as we're all susceptible to believing silly things while being relatively intelligent, otherwise)

Ultimately, there are only two ways to get rid of superstitions:(1) Reason - takes a long time, a lot of resources(2) Make a more popular, directly contradictory superstition - much quicker (especially when it's "kill the believers of that other superstition"), but it's also a zero sum game

And one way that a superstition is created:(1) "Hey guys! Guess what?"

And yes, I believe that a more educated population is less susceptible to superstition, but I don't think we will ever be entirely immune to them. So while the pursuit of perfection is a noble goal, attainment of said perfection is, I think, extremely improbable. Like "a flower pot and a whale manifesting spontaneously in outer space" improbable.

Zugswang:Monkeyhouse Zendo: Reason will eventually win out over superstition.

It's cold comfort, though, as silly beliefs spring up all the time. By the time you've discredited one fiction, a dozen more popped up when you weren't looking. Convince people female hysteria is a fake psychological diagnosis? BAM! Your soul is composed of thetans, vaccines cause autism, and prayers offered to deity X are better than modern medical treatment. And that homeopathy thing you disproved a long time ago? It's been resurrected.

That's the great thing about reason, it's a process not a belief. As long as the fictions are subjected to analysis and some threshold of evidence is established it doesn't matter what dumb assed ideas pop up. Hypothesis: Demonic bread; investigation reveals mouse; conclusion is mouse not demon. Viola.

Monkeyhouse Zendo:Zugswang: Monkeyhouse Zendo: Reason will eventually win out over superstition.

It's cold comfort, though, as silly beliefs spring up all the time. By the time you've discredited one fiction, a dozen more popped up when you weren't looking. Convince people female hysteria is a fake psychological diagnosis? BAM! Your soul is composed of thetans, vaccines cause autism, and prayers offered to deity X are better than modern medical treatment. And that homeopathy thing you disproved a long time ago? It's been resurrected.

That's the great thing about reason, it's a process not a belief. As long as the fictions are subjected to analysis and some threshold of evidence is established it doesn't matter what dumb assed ideas pop up. Hypothesis: Demonic bread; investigation reveals mouse; conclusion is mouse not demon. Viola.

You guys are deluding yourselves. 5000 years of rational thought and logic and people still believe in ghosts, psychics, and baby Jeebus.

Obviously the people who challenge these displays are just a lot more patriotic than you. It's okay, but don't act like THEY"RE the ones in the wrong here. You're the one who's failing in your duty as an American to protect and uphold the Constitution.

RabidJade:JosephFinn: Kibbler: Example. I don't like nativity scenes. But I don't complain about them.

Neither do I, if they're not a violation of the Constitution by being put up on government land.

Where does it say that at in the Constitution?

1st Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Which the last century of jurisprudence has more and more started to recognize means that you can't promote religion in the public square. It's taking time, but putting up a nativity scene is more and more being recognized as promoting a religion.

I. R. Rottweiler:StrangeQ: Wayne 985: As an atheist, stuff like this worries me. You win more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, and stacking beer cans next to people's religious symbols is going to come across as petty and utterly shallow.

You know what you win even more flies with? Big stinking piles of shiat. Think about it.

EviLincoln:Wayne 985: StrangeQ: Wayne 985: As an atheist, stuff like this worries me. You win more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, and stacking beer cans next to people's religious symbols is going to come across as petty and utterly shallow.

You know what you win even more flies with? Big stinking piles of shiat. Think about it.

I see where you're going, but I disagree. I know plenty of religious folks. They're good people and intelligent, but misguided on some aspects of life. If they have a prejudice against atheists, little things like this gradually make it worse. They can and should be shown that we're just as decent and respectful as anyone else. That doesn't mean licking their boots and agreeing to let the Constitution be violated, but it does mean that we need to pick our battles and fight them "cleanly", so to speak.

I like your style Wayne.

Thank you for the sponsorship, sir. It took me by surprise. Much appreciated.